As of writing this post, I have finished my loop. Previously i finished the character’s line art and colouring, so all i really had left to do was add some colour to the background and add sound.

With everything else done all I had to do was add sound, which completed the animation, as can be seen above. I was a bit stuck on what to do for this phase; shadows don’t naturally make sounds, so I had to be creative with how I’d introduce noise. The first thing I did was add some atmospheric background noise, as the animation takes place in an empty room so it would be a bit hollow sounding and echo-y. Next I needed to consider what sounds the shadow himself would make; I initially wanted to provide a voice for him, but I kind of liked his more silent nature, it reminded me of old cartoons where the characters wouldn’t speak, which relied more on body language, expression and sound effects to communicate what the character is feeling to the audience.

In the end, I chose loud and unrealistic sound effects for Sulli, echoing each one so that it matched the atmospheric sound in the background. I chose to use lighter an quicker sounds when he turned into a rabbit to portray it as small and kind of cute, while I used deeper and louder sounds for the monster to make it ‘scary’ in a sense. I liked the turn out of this, I think it gave off the personality I was trying to give Sulli well.

Overall on this rotation, there were parts I felt I did well, but I faced a lot of issues. The first thing I think I did well was planning out my timings; I never fell too far behind at any point, and I managed to finish on time. However, I think I was too eager to not fall behind at points; I wanted to move ahead quickly, so I didn’t stay on some stages for long enough. An example of this is with the stage after I finished my research; I didn’t do artistic experimentation looking back, and the lack of this lead to a final piece that wasn’t all that experimental in comparison to everyone else’s. I ended up producing something that looks like I could’ve produced it outside of a project, it looks like the kind of stuff I usually do. I think if I had been more flexible in the experimentation stage, I could’ve ended up with something more interesting as a final outcome. In future projects I want to experiment with a range of things before settling on one, I want to become someone who produces pieces of work that differ from each other a lot with each project, and to do this I think I need to challenge myself more to work with other art styles and mediums.

A second thing I think I could’ve improved on was being more clear with my audience. I’m not sure if it’s very clear what is going on in my loop right now, I don’t know if people can tell that it’s a shadow. I ran into a similar problem with my animatic project; I didn’t really consider that I knew a lot more about my work than the audience, so maybe it wasn’t clear enough what the story was. I think i can overcome this by becoming more confident in sharing my work, and asking people if it’s clear enough and what I can change.

Lastly, I feel a bit like all of my work so far has looked really similar. Everything is kind of in the same style, with the same kind of atmosphere. I want to become more flexible as an artist so that I can communicate a range of messages in a range of different ways; Every time I finish a project, I look back on it and feel a bit dissatisfied with it. This has been happening with my personal artwork as well; I think I should try taking a break from my usual way of working and find new ways of drawing and communicating. I’ll aim to practice drawing a lot, as I feel I’m not so good it it right now and it affects my animations and the way I approach them. Maybe I’m avoiding ambitious art pieces because of my lack of confidence in drawing, so I think improving in that area will push my projects forward.

Overall, I feel this project has taught me a lot about research. Truthfully, in the past I’ve felt like research was just something teachers made us do and wasn’t completely necessary, But I’ve seen through my own and through other people’s work how much a strong body of research and experimentation can drive a project forward, and how it can help to form ideas. I think research can strengthen any project now, even simpler ones, and I understand it’s importance and value it more now. Doing research can completely change your approach to your project, and it can also help to generate ideas when you’re stuck. In future projects I’ll treat the research just as importantly as I treat the process of creating artwork; I’ve learned that it can be a good thing to slow down and let ideas form themselves than to rush ahead to try and meet a deadline (deadlines are still important of course but, yeah). I’ll adopt this mindset into each new project that I come out with.